Rocky

I'm crazy!

My Goal

My new goal is to survive the next couple of weeks. Think of a happy place...

A Hint

Mission Peak has a hint of green. I love it. I can see Mission Peak from my house and from my office window.

Tomorrow, Turkey Day! Time to bring out the fat pants!

Oops! Not Down Your Pants...

I thought this was kind of funny and painful.


WICHITA, Kan. - A botched kidnapping ended with one of the assailants shooting himself in the groin, police said.

The man had just stuck the gun in his waistband when it fired, shooting him in the left testicle, authorities said. He cringed, causing the gun to fire again and strike him in the left calf, they said.

The 23-year-old man managed to walk into a hospital for treatment. He and his two alleged accomplices, ages 18 and 20, were arrested on attempted kidnapping charges. They were accused of trying to kidnap a teenager in a dispute over stereo speakers.

The Rain and The Day From Hell

I once lived in Georgia where it rained all the time. Apparently, mostly everywhere outside of California it rains in the summertime and all vegetation dies in the wintertime. When it rains in California I sometimes get irritated because people forget how to drive, I’m stuck in traffic and everything is wet. But then I remember how I loved the rain in Georgia. In the beginning it was irritating, but then I would walk in the rain everywhere I went. When it rained it was relief from the 110 degree weather and 100% humidity. I hated physical training when the actual temperature was 120 degrees (it was actually 100 degrees but with the humidity factor it was 120 degrees). When it rained the temperature would drop like 30 degrees and I could run in the rain forever, even though I was so wet I weighed 10 pounds more. I just didn’t want the rain to stop because if you’ve ever been in the South after it has rained you know what I’m talking about.

The Day from Hell was the first day I had physical training. I don’t know if it was because it was my first physical training day or it was just really the day from hell. Our instructor was like the bad cop in The Terminator 2. He just wouldn’t stop. Two minutes after we started doing calisthenics there was a lot of thunder and it started raining, but no lighting. If there was lighting we would have stopped, but no we went on for about 1 ½ hour of CRAZY calisthenics. If you slowed down our instructor stared at us with piercing eyes and somehow found the strength to continue.

At one point I had dirt on my face, in my teeth, and my arms were collapsing and thought to myself, “What am I doing?!” Then I thought to myself, “Thank God it is raining or else I probably would have fainted.” I’m not physically strong but I pushed myself to do it but there were some guys around me that were in so much pain, it was kind of sad. Later we stretch for about ½ hour and it hurt. Let’s say the only thing that didn’t hurt later that night was my hair. I woke up in the middle of the night to roll over in my bed and I had a wave of pain went through my body.

A few months later our instructor actually apologized because he even thought that day was really harsh.

Dog

Melissa and I are the new and proud owners of an 11 week old Shih Tzu. Please observe it's cuteness. His name is Rocky.

Last Saturday

Last Saturday I spent a few hours with my little nephew, Daniel, alone. I tried to bring along Andrew (my other nephew) but he didn’t want to come with me. I took Daniel to PetSmart, where we saw lots of little dogs, fishes and cats. After that I was thirsty so I decided to take Daniel to Jamba Juice, but the line was out the door. We started walking over to Baskin Robbins, then all of a sudden Daniel sees Starbucks and screams, “Yo quiero café!” (I want coffee!)

Let see, a 3 year old, who can’t even read wants coffee from Starbucks. Starbucks must be doing something very right or very wrong since even my 3 year old nephew wants coffee.

Of course I don’t get him coffee but I did get two tall vanilla bean fraps (which are still loaded with sugar, but hey what are aunts for). Then Daniel wants to sit on the patio with all the other people and drink his frap, which I would have gladly done because it was so cute of him for asking but there were a bunch of smokers. So we went to Barnes and Nobles and looked at some books. Fun times!

A Long Ride

Yesterday, I had to go up north for work. Total it was a six hour drive (back and forth). I have never been car sick in my life (This is Melissa) Well I was sick the WHOLE time. It was the worst feeling ever, but I feel fine now. I don't know what happened.

Web Site

I made a web site for church. It's a little unfinished right now, I'm still trying to get some pictures and stuff. It's my first attempt of any kind at web design, so if you're an experienced hand and can offer some advise - go ahead. Go check it out.

17 Miles

It really bothers me that it takes me one hour to drive 17 miles to San Jose. If I don't leave at the crack of dawn, then I'm stuck for one hour whether it's 880 or 680.

Ensenada Vacation

For my dad's birthday, Jesse and I decided to take my parents and my two little brothers to Ensenada, Mexico. My dad needed a vacation so we went last weekend. We had a very good time. We visited the mission site (the clinic) that we go to every year, the Bufadora (the blowhole), ate some good food and hung out at the beach. We stayed at a vacation rental home right on Punto Estero which is a pennisula a little south of Ensenada. That is where all the Americans own their nice homes.

So on Friday night we left Fremont and drove down to Oceanside until the sun came up. After some breakfast at Denny's, we crossed the border Saturday morning. We got to Ensenada way before our check-in time so we went to the Gigante bought some drinks and a phone because I had to call the doctor. We visited the Doctor at the clinic. I found the neighborhood kids, three of them in particular Jesus, Sylvia and Isaac.

The doctor invited to eat carne asada, my dad's and Jesse's favorite food. There was a lot of food which was delicious although Kevin and Josue (my little brother's) didn't want to eat anything. Jesse and my dad ate alot, alot.

Then we went to Costco, yes there is a Costco in Ensenada. We went to Costco because my dad wanted to find a bilingual dictionary for my little cousin but instead we bought some jeans for Jesse. We were extremely exhausted by then so we decided to go to the house we rented even though it wasn't time check. But fortunately when we got there the lady was very nice and allowed us to check in a few hours early. So we slept.

It was about 6:00 p.m. when Jesse and I woke up. Everyone was hungry so Jesse and I left to the city to buy some food. It takes about half an hour to get to the city from where we were. So we got to the Calimax (the supermarket) around 7:00 p.m. and the place was busy. It took about one hour to shop. They have the best bread ever. They have "El Pan del Muerto" meaning the "Bread of the Dead" for The Day of The Dead. It was a giant bread. Jesse had a miniature version of this 1 kilo dessert.

Back at the house, my mother was freaking out because it had almost been 2 hours since we left. She thought maybe we had gotten lost or someone had abducted us. My mom wanted to call us on our cell phones but they didn't work in Mexico. My dad said that my mom would walk to the window every five minutes to see if we were coming home. We arrived a little later and had some dinner.

Sylvia and Isaac told me that it was there brother's birthday the following day so on Sunday after church we had cake and ice cream with the Jesus' parents, brother and sister and some other kids.




After that we went to the Bufadora and bought some trinkets and ate at Habana Cabana's. We had some good food there and the band was great. We played Scrabble for the rest of the evening. Monday we had some breakfast and stopped at various places to shop including in Rosarito. We arrived at Fremont around 1 a.m.

Fremont A's Update

Apparently the land which has been purchased in Fremont for a future A's stadium belonged to Cisco systems, employees of which are highly involved in the design of a "State of the Art" baseball stadium with 40,000 seats.

According to Fremont Mayor Bill Wasserman he expects a deal with the A's before Thanksgiving.

I heard that statement from Mayor Wasserman on NPR this morning. Fremont gets attention from NPR. Awesome.

Evidently if the A's move to Fremont they'll be the Silicon Valley A's of Fremont, or something like that. Now that would suck.

Surgery

My cousin Daniel had his eye surgery on Friday. They were able to extract two of the three pellets in his eye. He is recovering well but a little groggy from the vicodin. When we arrived at the surgery center, Daniel was only scheduled to have an eye surgery but ended up having his hand fixed too. Daniel was supposed to have the four lead pellets removed from his hand which was going to cost an extra $3,000.00 but my family couldn't afford it.

They decided that it was more important to fix his eye, so the hand would have to wait until later. Daniel, my aunt and I went into the patient prep room to wait for the doctor. The eye doctor came in and ask some general questions then left the room. The doctor came in a little later and told us that the hand surgeon was going to be in the surgery center and that he was going to do Daniel's hand surgery for free! We are all so happy that Daniel is mostly completely fixed and so glad that God provides for our every need.

We Are Still Alive

We've just been a little busy. I was away for a week for work training and Jesse was busy helping Jared remodel his house. That's all. We'll post more later. I'm going to bed, I'm sleepy.

And the Award for Least Manliest Man in the World Goes to...

And in other news this is sadly funny

Polygamist Jeffs Moved to UtahTo Face Charges
Meanwhile, in Beverly Hills, Hugh Hefner (right) celebrates his half-birthday.

Insurance

Melissa and I consolidated our insurance yesterday. I wanted to add her to my AAA policy, so I called the AAA people and tried to get a quote. The first thing I had to do was give them the song and dance that confirms that I am who I say I am. It turns out that they still had me living in New York, and the fact that I was living in Fremont was going to save me $8 every year. Fantastic.

They don't have a current membership for me, they say I never renewed. Despite that I have a receipt for renewal with a confirmation number and everything, in addition to the card that says I'm a member until May 2007. Also wonderful.

After going over that for ten minutes or so I got a quote to add Melissa and her 1999 standard V6 baseline Mustang which is driven maybe twice a week. It was going to be for her alone over double what I currently pay, bringing us up to three hundred and something every month.

I am now insured by Progressive.

Ugh....

I love waking up at 3:00 a.m. and working for 15 hours straight...

Benji is Here!

We have a new pet! It's another goldfish. He is a Black Moor (the ones with bulging eyes) and his name is Benji. He is TINY compared to all of our fancy goldfish.

Our other Black Moor, named Max, is so big now that his bulging eyes giggle as he swims.

Boise

I was just in Boise for work. Nothing too exciting but at least I was able go to a state that I probably would have never gone in the first place. Sadly, I was not able to eat a really good potato. I strolled along downtown, the river, ate at a brewery or ale restaurant, saw the capital building, read a book and watched Willy Wonka and the Chocalate Factory. I ended up finding the mall, not to impressive but it satisfied my needs. Oh! I also had a Route 44 Cherry Limeade at Sonics!

I'm always amazed how beautiful the land is when I'm able to see it from the plane. And I'm always amazed of how happy I am to live in California.